Fonder the Heart Grows
by JimmyDANj2
Summary: Kanan and Hera have a conversation about attachment.


Fonder the Heart Grows

Hera woke up to find herself alone. Beside her, the sheets were strewn in that particular way, molded to the ghost of a body. She was used to ghosts. Her ship, the former Phoenix crew, those she couldn't save day by day.

But when it came to him, she was left with nothing but wisps and granules of stardust and whispers of stupid adages and endless Jedi wisdoms that gave her his ghost but never the man back on Gorse that swaggered over to her, smile roguish, eyes gleaming –

Sighing, she stuck a pale, green leg over the side of the mattress.

Well, it was her fault too. Probably _mostly_ her fault, if she were honest.

She tugged on her cotton robe, ashen-grey like his eyes weren't (even visionless, they were twin pools of spun silver, of meandering fog that wreathed itself around her soul every time she ventured into his gaze) and made her way down the hall.

* * *

The Great Temple was shrouded by the loom of midnight, but her attention was focused to where she knew he would be.

Bare feet padded against foliage as she rubbed her arms for warmth.

"Forest is even _colder_ ," she grumbled, groping her way in the dark, branches brushing against her lekku as she marched. "This is so unnecessary."

When she finally shrugged aside the last of the shrubbery and entered the clearing, he was there. Cross-legged, palms against his knees, his mask a further blight than the darkness of night ever was.

"You should be asleep," he murmured.

Teeth chattering, she rolled her eyes.

"That is my line and you know it. This is the third time this week, Kanan."

She sauntered across the meadow. Felt grass blades tickling the soles of her feet as she dropped unceremoniously down next to him.

"I'm meditating."

"So you've told me," she scoffed.

A bead of silence, save for the howling wind.

"Meditating on what?" she leaned herself on his shoulder.

"Nothing in particular."

"You realize it's absolutely freezing out here, right?"

He shrugged, and she felt the bump of it, felt her lekku roll from its position to dangle over his shoulder like some limp flower petal.

"You don't need to come after me like this, Hera," he scolded. "You should have stayed in bed."

The familiar irrational anger bubbled against her chest, surfacing as a growl.

"Well, what happens if I don't? What happens when you keep leaving like this, and I'm not there to stop you, and one day it just…stays like that? One day you're just gone and I'm not sure where to find you."

His forehead creased in that way that she would have found so endearing were she not so frustrated.

"Hera, you're overreacting – "

"Oh ho ho, don't you tell _me_ that, Kanan, not when you're the one out here so late, not when you're the one who keeps going somewhere I can't follow – "

His voice when he interrupted was gravelly as opposed to his usual smooth tenor. The texture of earth grating against earth, of a storm brewing over an angry sea.

"Somewhere _you_ can't follow?" he repeated, incredulity bitter on his tongue. "Hera, I've accepted that I'll always be second seed. But you've never stopped being the most important thing on my list. I've put all of myself into this, every bit I have, not because it's the Empire and it's the right thing to do, but because of you."

Her face crumpled and she buried it against the crook of his elbow.

"I know," came her muffled remorse. "I know how unfair I've been to you. I…I'm sorry, Kanan. But please know it's not true. You're not any less important to me, even if I've been lousy at showing it."

He sighed. Said nothing, but wound his arms around her and held her closer.

Their breaths mingled, visible in the cold.

"There's something else, though," she ventured cautiously. "I haven't…I haven't been paying us enough attention, but that's not what this is about, is it? I know you, Kanan."

A long quiet, pervaded by the tattoo of critters thumping against tree bark.

He had always been patient with her, so the least she could do was return the favor.

"I've been thinking," he finally replied. "About what this war has cost us. Have you?"

"Not a day goes by that I don't," she murmured.

Out in the distance, the wind's howl was drowned by a wolf's.

"Ezra's lost his parents," he continued. "Sabine lost her childhood, Zeb lost his people, you've lost your mother, I've lost the Jedi."

He clutched her tighter, as if afraid she'd billow into the wind like so many motes of dust.

"We've lost Ahsoka," he thought back to Malachor.

"And lost ourselves."

In his head, the vision of Ezra's visage creased in anger, twisted by grief, glowing by light of the holocron, crimson staining his face like blood. The vision of himself, wandering the annuls of darkness, of a world without sight, refusing his friends and loved ones.

"We give so much of ourselves day by day," he paused, breathing in the scent of sap. "And I wonder, how are we meant to survive, if we care so much? We care, care, _care_ until all that's left are bits of us barely patched together the next day.

Hera carefully pressed her fingers to the lip of his mask and lifted it. Truthfully, she despised the thing.

To his eyes, silver and molten and pale, she asked: "What are you saying, then?"

"Is it worth it?" his expression, lined with exhaustion, implored her.

He gestured between them, then out past the fog where their crew was sleeping.

"Us, this, them? As a Jedi, I was taught the values of distance. Attachment is dangerous, because the Force is easily swayed by our connection to others. Loss comes easy, so grief comes easy, so anger is inevitable. Even sitting here, in the forest, with you like this, I'm not sure what I would do if I lost you."

She kissed him. Light, barely a press of her lips on his.

"Maybe I don't have a clue what I'm saying," she mused. "But you've always worn your heart on your sleeve, Kanan. If the Jedi of old were how you say they were, then I'm of the opinion that you didn't make a very good one."

"Ouch," he chuckled. "Thanks for the vote of confidence."

"But they're gone," she pointed out. "They're gone and you're the one here. Teaching Ezra, giving this rebellion the best chance it's ever had. I've seen you do incredible things, Kanan. Not because you're a Jedi, but because you're the kindest man I've ever known."

She stared into his depths, clouded by the film of vapor.

"You care, yes. It's your strength, as far as I can see."

He exhaled, the heady throb of lavender thick against his nose.

"Sometimes it's not clear to me why I'd lose so much for you when you're off killing yourself for the rebellion and you're asking me to do the same. Someone dies on our watch and a bit of us go with them. Someone dies for The Empire and they cut their losses with a whistle and smile."

His fingers wistfully trailed the hilt of his saber.

"It's times like those I remember my Master and the Jedi. Them telling me to let go. To stifle my feelings so they couldn't be held against me."

His eyes searched hers and her breath caught at their beauty. She forgot for a moment that he couldn't see her, since it was _so clear_ that he could.

"Kanan," she whispered. "I don't know, really, if the Jedi were wrong."

She hugged him, bunched her fingers and wrinkled his shirt. Clenched him so close neither could tell where he ended and she began.

"All I know is that what you and I have is what's got us this far. What, you think it'd be love if it didn't hurt?"

He blinked, mildly surprised. He hadn't heard her say it aloud before.

"What we have isn't wrong. It's not."

And, like this, under the canopy of stars and trees and life, he felt that he could believe her.

"Come on. It's late, and you're going to bed if I have to drag you by the ponytail."

Her toes were wet with dew by the time they stood. Kanan placed his mask back on with one hand and clasped Hera's with the other.

It was she, however, who stumbled and tripped on gnarled roots in the darkness, and he who was all too happy to guide her back along the forest path.

"I thought I was one who was supposed to be bli – "

"I hate you. I really do."

* * *

 **Author's Note:** This ended up way fluffier than I intended. I've been a fan of Rebels for a long while now and thought it was high time I contributed to the fandom. That being said, I'm not sure about this one. I dunno, I feel like neither Kanan nor Hera would've have spouted all this garble. And I'm not overly fond of the ending. Plech.

Anyway, reviews make me happy. Yes they do. :)


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